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Mrs Rita Restorick of Nottingham complained about an article which contained
a reference to the murder of her son, Lance Bombardier Stephen Restorick in Northern Ireland in 1997. She raised the following points of
concern: the article had spelt her son’s name incorrectly as ‘Steven’ when his
name was spelt ‘Stephen’; the lady to whom her son had been speaking was not
‘hounded out of her home’ by local republicans but left because she found it
upsetting to pass through the checkpoints which brought back the memory of the
murder; that this lady did not have ‘impeccable republican credentials’; that
the person jailed for her son’s murder was one of the sniper’s accomplices and
was released after 16 months rather than 18 months; and the man he named as
Stephen’s killer was not ‘convicted and jailed’ for the crime as there was no
forensic evidence to support the claim. The complainant wrote to the newspaper
asking it to publish a correction these points.

Resolution:

The newspaper published an edited form of the
complainant’s letter addressing her concerns regarding the time served by the
sniper’s accomplice. The complainant felt that this exacerbated the situation
as she did not expect an edited version of her letter to be published. The
complaint was resolved after the newspaper, and journalist involved, sent the
complainant private letters of apology.